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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168104">Trees</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/linerle/pseuds/linerle'>linerle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Character(s), Dementia, Implied/Referenced Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:13:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,564</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/linerle/pseuds/linerle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Decades after (or centuries before) the end of the series, an aging Madam Razz finds herself struggling even more to keep track of when she is. One afternoon, a visitor sends her reeling.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trees</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(Hey! This is just a short notice to give an additional warning from the tags. This work is inspired by dementia, but isn't intended as a description of dementia. Proceed with caution if you think this could be a trigger for you.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>«There you are!»</p><p>That voice, that voice sounds familiar somehow. I turn around and find a face that also feels familiar. But that’s all I can say about it. The name, the age, if it’s changed any since I last saw it, how it’s changed if it has, it’s all gone.</p><p>But I offer the face a smile. Offer a smile, and a warmness to my voice, two things I can always muster. «Hello, dearie, come on in!» And the face – it’s a she, I remember now, a she, a she I know – smiles back.</p><p>She steps in through the doorway, bowing down so as not to hit her head, leans against the wall and folds her arms. Is that like her? I don’t recall, it doesn’t... feel like her, but the smile convinces me. Yes, it must be like her.</p><p>«It’s good to see you, Razz.» Is that also like her, to say something like that? Or is it just like the memory I have of her, that she’s implanted in me of her, right now? I meet her eyes – grey, or blue, they’re grey or blue – they glow with something that feels like sincerity, like sincere joy. No, it must be like her. It’s how she’s always been, even if always only started a minute ago.</p><p>And the grin doesn’t leave her, even while I continue to inspect her. Blond hair, or maybe brown hair, combed backwards and tied up in a high ponytail. Double dimples on each side, one dominant at the front, one smaller at the back, like a shadow of the former. White teeth barely visible between the lips. And wrinkles. Wrinkles? Yes, a few wrinkles, and I don’t know why they surprise me, but they do.</p><p>
  <em>BLINK</em>
</p><p>«How nice of you to come,» I reply.</p><p>She almost looks surprised. Then, the smile returns in earnest. «Of course I came.»</p><p>«And why did you come visit me today?» It strikes me that my tone is almost feigned, it’s too bright, says: You caught me. I reach for a cup, something to keep my fingers occupied.</p><p>«Well...» She hesitates a little. «You invited me, Razz.»</p><p>... Yes. Yes, that’s right. I invited her. I wanted – what? What did I want? There’s nothing in my head to say what, but – in her eyes, behind the grey, or the blue, there’s something. A different memory, a different set of eyes, an invitation I can pick out. A tree. No, a flower. Lots of flowers. A whole flowerbed. «You’re right, of course,» I say, «I need help with the garden.» And as I say it, I know it to be true. The garden, full of weeds and improperly maintained. The grass is too long, the leaves must be raked, the ground – something about the ground.</p><p>«The garden?»</p><p>«Yes, the garden, that’s what I said.» Now she looks surprised, or does she? Is that what it means when her eyebrows go up, pulling the upper lip along, so that her teeth show just a little bit? That the skull underneath draws lines across her face as the muscles contract, is that what it means?</p><p>«Well.» She pushes herself out from the wall. There’s something about the motion, something sharp, defined, secure, a tensing of the muscles and a twisting of the bones, a way she cuts through the air, almost wounding it. Or it’s that something is left behind, a kind of shadow that still leans against the wall, like a memory of her that defines her more by contrast. «Gardening isn’t my strongest suit,» she alleges, «but I’ll help you,» and suddenly, there’s a name, a name for her, cutting through my mind like she cut through the air.</p><p>«That’s my Adora. Now, come along!» And before she can say anything, I’ve turned around and headed through the doorway.</p><p>
  <em>BLINK</em>
</p><p>The garden looks different from what I remember, though I can’t remember what I remember, what has changed and how. There might not have been roses here before, or there were more of them. And the hedge was more, or less, overgrown. The grass was shorter then, but by how much, I have no idea. The sun, too, was in a different place, the light hitting the garden differently now than it used to. But – the table, I remember. It’s the same as it was, it and the chairs around it. The two chairs and the table between them, carrying a memory in their seats.</p><p>«I see you need a lot of help.» Adora lets out a little laugh, hands on her hips, as she looks out over the garden with me. «Have you been out here at all this year?» I squint at her, at her grey eyes, brown hair. It’s clearer in the light outside, almost as though she’s been drawn with a sharper pen, as though I can see the real her more clearly. There’s an essence inside her, an essence that has a name of its own, a name I can’t remember right now, but it’s pulsating, gyrating, anxious to come out.</p><p>«I’m here every day, Adora. I live here, you know.»</p><p>She giggles. «Mara.»</p><p>The essence pushes out further, breaking free from her. It grasps for the weeds, the flowers, the soil itself, like a blue fog, seeping slowly across the landscape. I grip the rake harder. «Yes, Mara, of course.»</p><p>She whistles. «You haven’t lost your touch yet.»</p><p>«Huh?»</p><p>«The rake.»</p><p>I look at her, at her, not the essence.</p><p>«Don’t be coy,» she says, smiling. «You didn’t have the rake just ten seconds ago.»</p><p>The wood of the handle is soft to the touch, but the furrows make it feel firm, assertive, like nature itself coming through. The rake is as old as the tree it was made from, which is as old as the world itself, the endless cycle of life. The rake has always been there. «I don’t know what you’re talking about. I brought it with me on the way out.»</p><p>«If you say so.» Her smile is knowing – or is that what it means, when the corners of the mouth only twist a little upwards, and the eyes look away? When the eyes look to the flowerbed, and the weeds growing in it, but glance back at me? She sighs. «You’re probably behind the weeds here, too, aren’t you?»</p><p>There’s an essence to the plants, too, the weeds and the flowers alike – a green mist rising from the ground, like blurry leaves. The hedge, too, and the tree, their mist reaching further out, dissipating – the tree? No, that can’t be right. Just the flowers, the grass, the bushes, the hedge.</p><p>She takes hold of a bindweed and tugs it out. The mist fades away, leaves a scar, a reddish-brown mark taking over. It feels right – for her to leave a mark, for her essence to infiltrate the garden’s, make the place her own. She belongs here – yes, yes, she belongs here. How silly of me to even imagine for a moment that she doesn’t.</p><p>I tell her, «Good!» and she nods, still smiling.</p><p>
  <em>BLINK</em>
</p><p>«But how rude of me, I should get started too...» And there’s the grass, underfoot, almost tickling my knees. Perhaps she’s right, perhaps nobody’s been here since last year, perhaps more. The grass feels old, so it must be old. But it mustn’t be this tall. It must be shorter, and thinner, waving softly in the wind, just like – just like grass, like the grass used to be, the feeling under my feet, like I was walking on an alive thing, an alive and gentle and welcoming thing. That’s what the grass must be, a promise of life to come, not suffocating, not just a memory of life that’s been. That’s how the grass has always been. And so it is. I feel it gently welcoming my ankles as I walk towards the hedge.</p><p>But the hedge is grey, thinned-out, uneven. No flowers, not on the outside. But I can get them out again, pull them out from the gnarled twigs, let them breathe. I remember – the hedge was wider, taller, so tall that I couldn’t reach higher than halfway up without a ladder, it was thickly set with vivid leaves and suffused with the humming of bees living inside it, with the sound of wind blowing carefully through, reaching up to the tree – the tree, the tree, it’s not here any more, the storm took it away. That’s where the table, the chairs, that’s where they came from, from the tree, and – and it was she who made them for me, with her own two hands and the sword, took the dead wood and made them into not life, but something beautiful nonetheless.</p><p>«It looks great.» She’s breathless, right next to me, looking at the hedge. I follow her eyes, find the hedge taller, greener, whiter, the flowers have come out of the woodwork. The leaves have shot forth, filled in the gaps, turned it into a large, contiguous wall, but an alive one. There’s a wind, and it hums.</p><p>I smile. «Yes.»</p><p>«You really have a way with plants.» Now she’s looking at me, face specked with dirt, some strands of blond hair falling in front of her eyes, almost severing the gaze.</p><p>«Me?»</p><p>«You’re too humble, Razz.» She stretches an arm out to the side. «Not many people can do that. At least, not without fertiliser.»</p><p>«Oh, nonsense.»</p><p>«I could. I just prefer not to. But that’s different.»</p><p>The wind grips the hedge again, but the tone is different now, soft but not gentle, almost cautious. Almost like it doesn’t want to interrupt. And the flowers wave from side to side, yellow and white, almost like – like stars. They’re as it should be. «I didn’t do anything, dearie.»</p><p>His smile is like the wind, cautious and somewhat sorrowful – or is that what it means, when the mouth doesn’t move much, when it doesn’t curve all the way up, when the eyes flit back and forth? «Do you remember the first time we met?»</p><p>«The first time?» Yes. No. I remember... this house, this garden, a befuddled person stumbling out of the underbrush with a sword hanging from her hands, or was she assertive, pointing it at me as I emerged from the bushes? I remember a feeling, a sense of joy. Was that the first time, was that her?</p><p>«You thought you knew me.» A tiny laugh escapes her lips. «I had no idea who you were.»</p><p>«Yes.» Yes, I remember.</p><p>«You never got any better at getting my name right.»</p><p>«I remember it now, Mara.»</p><p>She giggles. «Adora.»</p><p>I peer at her over my glasses. «Yes, Adora, that’s what I said.»</p><p>A minute passes. When she speaks again, she starts with a sigh. «This place used to be so pretty. Cosy. It was so... full of life. And the trees were everywhere, and you had all these weird flowers, and colours. Remember? And there was a creek over there, you couldn’t see it from here but I loved listening to it, the water flowing, you know, remember?» – do I? I remember – not trees, no. But a tree, a willow, over there, dangling its yellow-green leaves over the garden, almost touching the ground, and yes, I remember the river whispering when we sat by the table – the table, yes, the table –</p><p>«– and I built the table for you. That was nice. Not that the tree fell down, I mean, but you got a new one straight away, and it was lovely. Until it died, too. I miss that tree.» Now her gaze meets mine, and I can see the tree in her irises, rising up from the blue soil. A willow, with long dangling branches, stretching up above the forest, yes, a forest, and the blood vessels are roots and the pupil is the trunk, stretching out towards me so I can touch it, and the wind flows through it, making a sound like sand being poured out on the ground. It was – it is – a lovely tree. It is.</p><p>She closes her eyes, opens them again, and the tree is no longer there. But she’s smiling. The sunlight lays spots across her face, and a creaking from behind me heralds a tear falling slowly down her cheek. «There it is,» she says.</p><p>«Of course it is.» I turn around to watch the tree with her. «It’s always been there.»</p><p>The leaves no longer sound like sand, they sound like tinkling glass as the wind strikes them. or maybe they sound like rainfall.</p><p>«Thank you, Razz.» I turn towards her again.</p><p>
  <em>BLINK</em>
</p><p>«I got all the weeds out. Maybe the flowers can come up again.»</p><p>«Wonderful, Adora!»</p><p>She giggles. «Mara.»</p><p>Mara. «Yes. That’s right.» Mara.</p><p>«You know,» she doesn’t appear to have minded, «we could plant the weeds somewhere else. They’d look great down by the creek.»</p><p>«You’re right.» I smile. «Plants need to grow. Just like the tree.»</p><p>A look of confusion passes over her face. «... Yes. Like all the trees.»</p><p>«No, I mean –»</p><p>But there’s no shadow now. No tinkle from the leaves, no feeling of something big overhead. Just the sun and the empty garden. When I turn, there’s not even a stump, just a small tuft of yellowing lemongrass. Lemongrass – yes, of course. The lemongrass that’s always been there. This is what the garden is like.</p><p>«But,» she dries the sweat off her face with an arm, «knowing you, you could probably make one.»</p><p>Something in her tone, something I don’t recognise. A sense of guilt rises in my chest. I can’t see it on the outside, but her essence, the blue spectre behind, between, before her, it’s reaching for me. It wants something.</p><p>«Make a tree?» I ask. Her eyes, grey and upfront, focus on me.</p><p>«Make anything.» A soft smile. «You know Etheria better than anyone. This soil, it’s your home.»</p><p>«I...»</p><p>«There are plenty trees around here, though. Don’t worry about making another one.» She sighs, and when she looks at me, she seems almost apologetic. «It’s time we got back inside, though, isn’t it? We’ve been out for a while. You need rest.»</p><p>Rest. Rest sounds good. And the garden... looks good. The weeds, the grass, they’ve all been pruned. The hedge, the flowers, they all have space to grow. And the tree – what tree? No, there’s no tree – just... a place for a tree to be. One day. And one day after that, a place for a tree to have been. I turn to look at her.</p><p>But there, before my eyes, her essence changes shape. A flash of gold flies across her, the eyes change colour, the hair billows. She grows taller, almost darker, but darker like a summer evening, what comes before the mildness of a night.</p><p>«You’ve done well,» she says, and the voice is different, but in a way more familiar. I nod.</p><p>«Come. Let’s go inside. I will tidy up the tools for you.» And she reaches  a hand out to me, and as I take it, the name tolls like a bell inside my head, and I drop the rake.</p><p>«She-Ra,» I breathe.</p><p>«Yes.»</p><p>«Thank you.»</p><p>Her smile is as warm as the setting sun. The essence rolls over me like a laughter, and she carries me inside, into my home.</p>
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